1907.] AND MOUNTAIN FORMATION. 385 



it goes on steadily, and in times gives rise to large effects over 

 considerable belts. It seems therefore practically impossible to 

 avoid the conclusion that our earth is not contracting at all, but 

 on the contrary is actually undergoing a slow secular expansion. 

 In any given geological age the areas uplifted may be confined to 

 particular regions, chiefly along the sea coasts, but in the long run 

 it will include a large part of the earth's surface. In the course of 

 ages more and more land is raised above the sea, which at the same 

 time is contracting its extent and decreasing its total volume by 

 the secular desiccation arising from the gradual absorption of the 

 waters into the rocks of the earth. 



§ 12. Researches Founded on the Hypothesis of the Gravitational 

 Instability of the Terrestrial Spheroid Rest on a False Premise. — 

 Quite recently several of the most learned mathematicians in Eng- 

 land have treated of the uplift of the continents and their secular 

 movements, on the hypothesis that these effects are due to gravi- 

 tational instability in the progressive shrinkage of our planet. 

 It is scarcely necessary to point out that in order to reach correct 

 conclusions we must start from correct premises, as well as follow 

 an unbroken chain of reasoning. One may readily concede that the 

 learned discussions which have appeared from several eminent 

 investigators are perfect specimens of the logical art, and adorned 

 with flawless mathematics. But if the premises are not well 

 founded in nature, the superstructure built thereupon necessarily 

 falls to the ground. It does not seem to have occurred to these 

 learned investigators to examine critically the underlying premises, 

 for no doubt they assumed the historical doctrine of secular cool- 

 ing and contraction of the globe as unassailable. 



From our study of this question, however, it seems certain that 

 the earth's cooling is infinitely slow, and that no sensible contrac- 

 tion or other movements depend on this cause. The observed move- 

 ments are always near the sea, which shows that they depend in some 

 way upon the oceans. As the land is frequently upheaved along the 

 sea coast, and all the mountains and plateaus have been thus uplifted, 

 it is impossible for such movements to depend upon the mere settle- 

 ment of a gravitationally unstable planet. Hence in the present en- 



